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The deterioration of New York City's population into a gaggle of self-interest groups has accelerated under the benign influence of nanny statists Obama, Obama, and Bloomberg. It is not a proud point that the city can keep from murdering itself only through the imposition of unconstitutional police tactics exercised almost exclusively in minority neighborhoods. That these neighborhoods cannot heal themselves is disgraceful, and of a piece with their inability to support the education of their children. If they cannot stand being policed in a fashion fitting their habits, they should be left to better themselves without the help of the police, and without more care for their children than they themselves exhibit.
It will be mere luck if the already confiscatory taxes of New York State and New York City are not increased under any one of the viable candidates for mayor. This near-inevitability will guarantee further deterioration of the fiscal health of both those entities, and accelerate the emigration of those who can emigrate.
However, the least noted and ugliest aspect of life in New York City is that the great advantages inhering in its museums and concert halls have fallen under the control of local plutocrats and been reserved mostly for their convenient use, while being pointedly allowed as an occasional, charitable condescension to those who desire but cannot afford the advertised cost of admission to those important experiences. The rich of old who built and endowed these institutions would probably be sick to see these swollen new lords of New York, who are well represented by the current mayor.

BUT: he DOUBLED the city's debt. From Crain's -- "When the mayor took office in 2002, the total outstanding debt of the city was $55.2 billion. This year, the Citizens Budget Commission estimates the total reached $110 billion. The increase: 100%!"

How? why, don't you know we had to replace all our perfectly serviceable "Walk/Don't Walk" signs? our perfectly serviceable voting machines? and make yuppie pedestrian plazas out of all our traffic lanes? And much, much more: but really, what DID he spend all our money on?

And the voters of NYC are quite bird-brained: they voted for the hard-Left Bill de Blasio. Really, non compos mentis. So it seems we are Toast, friends, unless by a miracle Joe Lhota is elected.

I never thought much of Koch - in Koch's new York, the streets were still anarchy, Times Square/42nd Street (affectionatly known as "the deuce") was a mess, as was Union Square and a hundred other open air drug markets, from the Lower East Side to the Bronx. As a teenager/very young adult I liked the wild feel of the City during the Koch years (except being mugged - that part I didn't like), but it all went sour under Dinkins, didn't it?

But of course Giuliani never got credit for rescuing New York - that "R" meant that he would always be defined only as Mr. Law and Order, not as the guy who saved New York from looking like Detroit.

It seems unbelievable that New Yorkers have forgotten what it was like under Democratic mayors, the lurching from crisis to crisis, the crime, the racial tensions, the spray paint over everything, the prostitutes and squeegees everywhere, the inroads by other states into core NYC businesses - remember how close Jersey City came to taking away the Commodities Exchange? - the population loss etc. A powerful media that is utterly hostile to anything but the corrupt Democratic machine has managed to make New Yorkers forget just how unliveable the City whad become under Democratic mayors.

It is a lesson that New Yorkers appear to need to re-learn i.e. havng forgotten the past they will get to relive it.

As for education, Mr. Whelton, you have it wrong, it isn't that no one "can fully compensate for the downward pressure of parents who don't care enough to show up at PTA meetings" it's the fact that a subtantial number of families don't have a father in the home. Look at the statistics, it is the lack of a father that makes the difference. And because the lack of a father has become cultural for one group - (75%!) - the result is a community where crime is the norm and education the exception. With all due respect, these were Democratic policies that this group adopted- dependence/money at the price of proof that there wasn't a father in the house - add a (Democratic) entertainment industry that made single parenthood an acceptable "choice" - and you have a cultural experiment whose results are horrifying. And you can't even talk about it directly because Democratic media has put muzzles on those who would even point out the problem. And it is a BIG problem in New York because without a father in the home that group will always underachieve - but without being able to talk about it, the half century old insanity will continue.

If anything, Giuliani showed just how much a Mayor can do, how much good leadership counts. But, instead of admitting that Giuliani had saved the city and rewarding him with a third term, the City Counsel ensured he couldn't run again. Explain that!

If a Democrat wins the next election, we can all look forward to a return to what we had before Giuliani, in terms of crime, education etc., and the media will place the blame everywhere except where it belongs, with the corrupt Democratic policies, where taxpayer money is funnled through public unions right into Democratic coffers. How do you justify that "legal" corruption?

@Omar yeah because Chicago is doing so great with crime that obviously they don't need to copy anything NY city does. That is priceless. Keep enjoying your murder rate which is the highest in the country.

Thank you for this short call aimed at the future successor of Mayor Bloomberg. I agree with everything you say.

Let me draw your attention to two mistakes I have found. They have nothing to do with your message, but I find them disconcerting nevertheless, and you may want to avoid making them in the future. You write

"That's okay-but only if they want to serve the city. (...) Unless you love this city, unlexx you can say no to people who would gladly impoverish New York in the name of a good cause, unless you have the courage of Guiliani who not only tackled street crime but also went toe-to-toe with the organized criminal gangs that were strangling the city-you will do more harm than good."

The mistake is your mixing the two punctuation marks called dash and hyphen. The latter connects two separate words or more to make a new one: In your sentence quoted by me'toe-to-toe' is correct, as are others in your text Hyphenated expressions do not have a space between them. In writing 'That's okay-but only..." You make a mistake, as the logic of the sentences requires their being separated by a comma OR a dash: "That's okay - but only..."

I find it easy to avoid making this mistake - all one has to do is to ask oneself if one wants/needs to SEPARATE or to CONNECT. You may want to look at the text again and find the eight misplaced hyphens that MUST be dashes instead - or so the üunction rules of the English language have it.

Isn't Compstat just a big lie? It's been debunked and is pretty much down grading or ignoring crimes instead of preventing and solving them. It's a sham that's spread to other places like here in Chicago and proving useless if you look past the latest news conference. Stop and frisk is a tactic that doesn't have a place in America. If someone is not in progress of committing a crime and therefor not under arrest or detained, then there is no reason to stop, question, or frisk them. Period.

The correct term is stop-question - frisk . The question thing gives the cop probable cause to do the frisk part . Mislabeling the practice plays into the hands of the left liberal opposition . If you want to control the argument do not use the vocabulary of your opponent .

There was JUST enough improvement in a few things, and it has lasted over a decade or two,,,,, so some residents forget and some never knew NYC in its former horrid state. It will take little for that NYC to return.......

None of the candidates seem to want to continue Giuliani's policing reform. Top it with the loss of stop and frisk by the courts. Crime will be going up almost certainly.

The financial state of the city is still bad. It's still basically broke, spends too much and doesn't get much value for what it does spends. Too many candidates still want to soak the rich with higher taxes, only driving more movers and shakers out of town and soaking much lower income people instead.

Schools never got any real reform and are still basket cases. Until the forces that keep the status quo in place are removed, no mayor can do much.

Lower crime rates and a much cleaner and better looking city were a start, but that's all they are. Its far easier to backtrack then to go forward.